724 research outputs found
Optical studies of ferroelectric and ferroelastic domain walls
Recent studies carried out with atomic force microscopy or high-resolution transmission electron microscopy reveal that ferroic domain walls can exhibit different physical properties than the bulk of the domains, such as enhanced conductivity in insulators, or polar properties in non-polar materials. In this review we show that optical techniques, in spite of the diffraction limit, also provide key insights into the structure and physical properties of ferroelectric and ferroelastic domain walls. We give an overview of the uses, specificities and limits of these techniques, and emphasize the properties of the domain walls that they can probe. We then highlight some open questions of the physics of domain walls that could benefit from their use
High-contrast imaging of 180{\deg} ferroelectric domains by optical microscopy using ferroelectric liquid crystals
Ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) couple the direction of their
spontaneous electric polarization to the direction of tilt of their optic axis.
Consequently, reversal of the electric polarization by an electric field gives
rise to an immediate and lasting optical response when an appropriately aligned
FLC is observed between crossed polarizers, with one field direction yielding a
dark image, and the opposite direction yielding a bright image. Here this
peculiar electro-optic response is used to image, with high optical contrast,
180{\deg} ferroelectric domains in a crystalline substrate of magnesium-doped
lithium niobate. The lithium niobate substrate contains a few domains with
upwards electric polarization surrounded by regions with downward electric
polarization. In contrast to a reference non-chiral liquid crystal that is
unable to show ferroelectric behavior due to its high symmetry, the FLC, which
is used as a thin film confined between the lithium niobate substrate and an
inert aligning substrate, reveals ferroelectric domains as well as their
boundaries, with strong black and white contrast. The results show that FLCs
can be used for non-destructive read-out of domains in underlying
ferroelectrics, with potential applications in e.g. photonic devices and
non-volatile ferroelectric memories.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure
Time-reversal symmetry breaking Abelian chiral spin liquid in Mott phases of three-component fermions on the triangular lattice
We provide numerical evidence in favor of spontaneous chiral symmetry
breaking and the concomitant appearance of an Abelian chiral spin liquid for
three-component fermions on the triangular lattice described by an SU(3)
symmetric Hubbard model with hopping amplitude () and on-site
interaction . This chiral phase is stabilized in the Mott phase with one
particle per site in the presence of a uniform -flux per plaquette, and in
the Mott phase with two particles per site without any flux. Our approach
relies on effective spin models derived in the strong-coupling limit in powers
of for general SU and arbitrary uniform charge flux per plaquette,
which are subsequently studied using exact diagonalizations and variational
Monte Carlo simulations for , as well as exact diagonalizations of the
SU() Hubbard model on small clusters. Up to third order in , and for
the time-reversal symmetric cases (flux or ), the low-energy
description is given by the - model with Heisenberg coupling and real
ring exchange . The phase diagram in the full - parameter range
contains, apart from three already known, magnetically long-range ordered
phases, two previously unreported phases: i) a lattice nematic phase breaking
the lattice rotation symmetry and ii) a spontaneous time-reversal and parity
symmetry breaking Abelian chiral spin liquid. For the Hubbard model, an
investigation that includes higher-order itinerancy effects supports the
presence of a phase transition inside the insulating region, occurring at
[] between the
three-sublattice magnetically ordered phase at small and this Abelian
chiral spin liquid.Comment: 21 pages, 23 figure
Influence of Pressure and Temperature on X-Ray Induced Photoreduction of Nanocrystalline CuO
The authors are grateful to Prof. Alain Polian for providing NDAC cell. Parts of the present research have been carried out at the ODE beamline at SOLEIL.X-ray absorption spectroscopy at the Cu K-edge is used to study X-ray induced photoreduction of copper oxide to metallic copper. Although no photoreduction has been observed in microcrystalline copper oxide, we have found that the photoreduction kinetics of nanocrystalline CuO depends on the crystallite size, temperature and pressure. The rate of photoreduction increases for smaller nanoparticles but decreases at low temperature and higher pressure.Institute of Solid State Physics, University of Latvia as the Center of Excellence has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme H2020-WIDESPREAD-01-2016-2017-TeamingPhase2 under grant agreement No. 739508, project CAMART
Experimental evidence of accelerated seismic release without critical failure in acoustic emissions of compressed nanoporous materials
The total energy of acoustic emission (AE) events in externally stressed
materials diverges when approaching macroscopic failure. Numerical and
conceptual models explain this accelerated seismic release (ASR) as the
approach to a critical point that coincides with ultimate failure. Here, we
report ASR during soft uniaxial compression of three silica-based (SiO)
nanoporous materials. Instead of a singular critical point, the distribution of
AE energies is stationary and variations in the activity rate are sufficient to
explain the presence of multiple periods of ASR leading to distinct brittle
failure events. We propose that critical failure is suppressed in the AE
statistics by dissipation and transient hardening. Some of the critical
exponents estimated from the experiments are compatible with mean field models,
while others are still open to interpretation in terms of the solution of
frictional and fracture avalanche models.Comment: preprint, Main article: 7 pages, 3 figures. Supplementary material
included in \anc folder: 6 pages, 3 figure
Short-range order of compressed amorphous GeSe2
The structure of amorphous GeSe2 (a-GeSe2) has been studied by means of a combination of two-edges X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and angle-dispersive X-ray diffraction under pressures up to about 30 GPa. Multiple-edge XAS data-analysis of a-GeSe2 at ambient conditions allowed us to reconstruct and compare the first-neighbor distribution function with previous results obtained by neutron diffraction with isotopic substitution. GeSe2 is found to remain amorphous up to the highest pressures attained, and a reversible 1.5 eV red-shift of the Ge K-edge energy indicating metallization, occurs between 10 GPa and 15 GPa. Two compression stages are identified by XAS structure refinement. First, a decrease of the first-neighbor distances up to about 10 GPa, in the same pressure region of a previously observed breakdown of the intermediate-range order. Second, an increase of the Ge-Se distances, bond disorder, and of the coordination number. This stage is related to a reversible non-isostructural transition involving a gradual conversion from tetra- to octa-hedral geometry which is not yet fully completed at 30 GPa
Abstract robust coarse spaces for systems of PDEs via generalized eigenproblems in the overlaps
Coarse spaces are instrumental in obtaining scalability for domain decomposition methods for partial differential equations (PDEs). However, it is known that most popular choices of coarse spaces perform rather weakly in the presence of heterogeneities in the PDE coefficients, especially for systems of PDEs. Here, we introduce in a variational setting a new coarse space that is robust even when there are such heterogeneities. We achieve this by solving local generalized eigenvalue problems in the overlaps of subdomains that isolate the terms responsible for slow convergence. We prove a general theoretical result that rigorously establishes the robustness of the new coarse space and give some numerical examples on two and three dimensional heterogeneous PDEs and systems of PDEs that confirm this property
Optimal Interface Conditions for Domain Decomposition Methods
We define optimal interface conditions for the additive Schwarz method (ASM) in the sense that convergence is achieved in a number of steps equals to the number of subdomains. Since these boundary conditions are difficult to use, we approximate them by partial differential operators that are easier to use. We present numerical results using these approximate interface conditions for the ASM and Schur type methods (substructuring). We also give a new result of convergence for BiCG which is then used for BiCGSTAB
Avalanches from charged domain wall motion in BaTiO3 during ferroelectric switching
We report two methods for direct observations of avalanches in ferroelectric materials during the motion of domain walls. In the first method, we use optical imaging techniques to derive changes in domain structures under an electric field. All changes occur through small jumps (jerks) that obey avalanche statistics. In the second method, we analyze jerks by their displacement current. Both methods reveal a power law distribution with an energy exponent of 1.6, in agreement with previous acoustic emission measurements, and integrated mean field theory. This new combination of methods allows us to probe both polarization and strain variations during the motion of domain walls and can be used for a much wider class of ferroelectrics, including ceramic samples, than acoustic emission
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